Posted By Dan Greenfield on Sep 28, 2024 | 10 comments

Big doings for a little character…

By PETER STONE

When I grew up, the Atom was always part of the JLA but he never seemed to have a great role within the team. A guy who shrinks down to six inches or microscopic levels so he can travel through phone lines to punch the bad guy in the face? That’s not all that exciting. Especially since you’re sitting next to Superman and Green Lantern. The little guy was co-created by Gil Kane (with writer Gardner Fox), so he always looked pretty good when Gil drew him. Dramatic force-perspective and exciting compositions. The Atom was a very decent, second-tier character.

The Atom’s second appearance, 1961. Gil Kane pencils, Murphy Anderson inks.

By the ’80s, Kane was a legend and had done some of his best work on Spider-Man with the famous drug issues and the deaths of Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin. He had even created his own publishing company called Kane’s Adventure House, which gave us such classics as Blackmark and His Name Is… Savage. His Conan issues were something I always looked for. Even Gil’s Superman issues were spectacular.

The Big Two comics companies at the time were up to taking some chances. Frank Miller and Klaus Janson had redefined Daredevil, while Alan Moore and Walt Simonson were just getting their hands on Swamp Thing and Thor, respectively. Marv Wolfman and George Perez had turned the moribund Teen Titans into a smash. Writers and artists were developing new and interesting concepts but who would have seen such potential in Ray Palmer? Kane and writer Jan Strnad, that’s who, with The Sword of the Atom.

The Atom was no longer just a little character who traveled through phone lines to punch dudes in the face. Now he was a tiny warrior with a sword, fighting for a mysterious, lilliputian kingdom in the jungles of South America. There were elements of Richard Matheson’s The Shrinking Man in the story, but he now had his own world. The tale was also very much influenced by Harlan Ellison’s 1971 sub-atomic storyline for the Hulk and one of his true loves, Jarella.

Ray Palmer changes his persona to become simply “Atom” as he integrates into this strange new, primitive world. He falls even in love with a princess named Laethwen. After just a couple of issues, suddenly the Atom is a real character, with a whole new world to exist in. Kane even gave him an altered costume that seemed to fit right into this savage land.

Atom becomes a leader, not just a guy with a tiny chair in the JLA satellite. Laethwen’s future husband dies at the mandibles of army ants and she and Atom profess their secret love for each other within a matter of days. Ray Palmer’s wife Jean, who cheated on him but then realizes she misses him terribly, searches for her husband even though he has no interest in going back to his old marriage.

One of the wonderful things about Sword of the Atom is the confrontations with creatures who used to appear harmless but were now deadly. A snake, a parade of ants, a lizard and a stream of water. A normal-size human wouldn’t think twice about them, but Atom and his new followers have to struggle past all of these dangers.

Gil Kane’s work is as good as it’s ever been, even if it’s slightly stylistic. There is a clarity to his approach that I personally enjoy, especially when he inked his own pencils. When other inkers worked on Gil’s pencils, they added perhaps a little too much of their own personality.

Neal Adams actually enjoyed working on Gil’s pencils because he viewed them as a simple structure that he could elaborate on. He could make the men more handsome and the women more beautiful. Neal added more structural anatomy to the figures and even inked the rough backgrounds Gil penciled (which Neal usually hated to do).

Other inkers tended to do the same kind of thing, but when Gil inked his own pencils the work became perfectly simplistic and eminently readable.

The Sword of the Atom is a nicely contained storyline and Strnad and Kane give a second-string character new life. The miniseries is four issues long and was successful enough to justify three more specials. Eventually, the creative ream moved on, but they gave us a bunch of really terrific comics. There’s a light-hearted feeling to these stories, making the Atom a wonderful, new-ish character.

Give the series a read. It’s not hard to find the issues, or you can track down the 2007 collection from DC Comics. It’s worth it.

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MORE

— BURIED TREASURE — Dr. Strange and Dr. Doom: Triumph and Tragedy. Click here.

— BURIED TREASURE — DEADPOOL: Wade Wilson’s War. Click here.

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Peter Stone is a writer and son-in-law of the late Neal Adams. Be sure to check out the family’s twice-weekly online Facebook auctions, as well as the NealAdamsStore.com.